The coming general elections are no longer shaping up as a routine contest between parties, personalities, or campaign slogans. They are steadily evolving into something deeper, a referendum on the structure, legitimacy, and long term viability of the Nigerian state itself. The unresolved national question that has lingered since independence is no longer dormant. It is now pressing, visible, and politically combustible.
For decades, Nigeria’s governing elite has relied on managed adjustments instead of structural solutions. Whenever pressure builds, the response is familiar, elite pacts, zoning formulas, rotational arrangements, coalition deals, selective reforms, and temporary economic relief measures. These mechanisms are designed to calm tensions without fundamentally redistributing power, responsibility, or control. They postpone crisis but rarely resolve it.
The result is a steady accumulation of unresolved grievances across multiple fault lines. Fiscal imbalance between the center and the states persists. Ethnic and regional distrust remains deeply embedded. Resource control disputes are unresolved. Security failures continue to expose the fragility of centralized command structures. The constitutional framework itself remains widely criticized as overly centralized and operationally inefficient, creating distance between governance and the governed.
Recent reforms have not erased these pressures. Economic hardship remains severe despite major policy shifts such as subsidy removal and currency liberalization. Insecurity in multiple forms continues to erode public confidence in federal capacity. Separatist and self determination movements gain sympathy whenever citizens feel politically excluded or structurally disadvantaged. Electoral credibility is still debated cycle after cycle, with disputes over transparency, technology, and institutional independence never fully settled.
A nation cannot campaign its way out of a structural crisis. Messaging cannot substitute for redesign. Coalition arithmetic cannot replace constitutional clarity. Charisma cannot repair institutional imbalance. When foundational questions remain unanswered, elections become stress tests rather than solutions.
Across the political spectrum, more voices now acknowledge that the federation requires recalibration. The language differs, restructuring, devolution, fiscal federalism, regional autonomy, state policing, but the underlying demand is similar. Power must move closer to the people. Responsibility must align with authority. Revenue and control must be more equitably structured. Governance must become locally accountable rather than centrally rationed.
A credible reset of trust will not emerge from closed elite committees alone. It would require an inclusive, transparent, evidence driven process that brings together ethnic nationalities, civil society, professional bodies, youth movements, subnational governments, and constitutional experts. Whether through a sovereign style national dialogue, a far reaching constitutional review, or a multi stage renegotiation framework, the process must be seen as legitimate, participatory, and binding in outcome.
Key pillars of such a renegotiation would likely include genuine devolution of powers, a clearer resource and revenue framework, enforceable electoral reforms, stronger institutional independence, and a redesigned security architecture that addresses causes rather than symptoms.
The alternative is familiar and dangerous, more elite bargains, more temporary alignments, more short term stability purchased at the price of long term cohesion. That path deepens public cynicism and weakens national identity.
The stakes in 2027 are therefore unusually high. The election will test not only political popularity but political maturity. It will reveal whether leaders are prepared to think beyond personal ambition and party victory toward systemic survival. It will also test whether citizens are ready to demand structural answers rather than recycled promises.
Nigeria’s future will not be secured by postponement. It will be secured by honest renegotiation. The question is no longer whether the conversation is necessary. The question is whether the courage to act will match the urgency of the moment.
By Duruebube Chima Nnadi-Oforgu
OBLONG MEDIA UNLIMITED 
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